DVD to MKV Help!

[cyanyde]

I've been backing up my DVDs to AVI for years now. I used to do them manually, then started to use Gordian Knot and then eventually AutoGK which I have been using for about a year. I've been wanting to move to MKV, mainly because I can include subtitle tracks in the same file, but I am having problems.

I have tried such programs as AutoMKV and MKVMagic to no avail. When I can get AutoMKV to work properly, the encoding time is usually around 0.2x real time whereas in AutoGK I can get up to 1.5x real time. I really don't want to wait 2 days for an MKV file to finish and I haven't heard of anyone else complaining about the conversion time so maybe its just me? I have tried these programs on a 2.4GHz AMDx2 / 2Gb ram system and my 2.2GHz AMD64 / 1Gb ram system with just about the same encoding time on each system using pretty low settings.

What I am really aiming for is a lower file size and the ability to place the subtitle file in the same container. I like to keep my original AC3 tracks to keep my surround sound but I want to move to AAC for smaller files and maintain a high quality video backup as well (Why have a low grade backup?).

After all that, here's my big question: Can anyone recommend a solution to my problem? (Such as, different MKV encoding and muxing methods, solutions to my low encoding speed problem, or another container/format I can still use AAC with and have a high quality video backup as well, the subtitles in the same file aren't necessary, but its nice to have.)

[Baldrick]

What video codec? h264?

[cyanyde]

Yes, I was attempting to use h264. I've been using XviD in my AVI's but since I'm new to MKV's, I don't know what formats go inside it and if I can use XviD with it.